In order to fully enjoy this movie i think that you must know quite well the context in which it was made, or to have "enjoyed" at least some of the 80's in Ceausescu's Romania.
At the time it was made, Sergiu Nicolaescu, it's director, was a kind of Romanian Bruckheimer, with some of the most successful action movies of those years. Of course, it must be said that almost 100% of the movies we could see in theaters in 1986 were from Romania, Russia, China or some other communist country.
The plot can be resumed as it follows: After 23 August 1944, the Romanian Army joined the Alied Forces in their fight against Hitler's troops. Horia is a young sergeant, with some lack of experience, but lot of enthusiasm, who has to lead the front-line of the Romanian army during the end of the war. Until the surrender of all the German troops, he will have the hardest experience a soldier could achieve.
The movie shows the heroic behavior of some ordinary men, forced by the circumstances to a constant fight for survival. The characters are quite "by the book", the good ones are very good, while the bad ones are worse than Hitler himself, and the love story between our hero and the General's daughter is quite hard to believe, but, anyway, these are just the moments between one battle and another, certainly the best parts of the film.
Lots of explosions and some very nice stunts make this movie a classic one in the Romanian history of action movie making.
At the same time, we can see some of the most important Romanian actors of all times, people like Mircea Albulescu, Ion Besoiu, Colea Rautu, Stefan Iordache, etc...
So, i think that almost every Romanian who was between 10 and 25 years old when the movie was released and enjoys action movies would recommend it.
